Getting my first job in tech.

Tag: responsive

Goodness, can’t believe it’s been almost a month since I’ve posted! Yay for 2019!!

I am unbelievable lucky in having a day job that gives two weeks off (for everyone) over xmas and new year’s. This is awesome in many ways, not the least of which is that you’re not the only one NOT working, so there’s less of that feeling of – omg, when I get back, I am going to have SO much to catch up.

Usually during this break, there’s holiday craziness and associated holiday travel. This year was no exception, and all the learning-to-code work that I thought I was going to get in over the break – well, HAHAHAHAHA.

The course basically drills you through all the things that Bootstap can do, broken up in 4 different categories – Utilities, CSS Components, Grid & Flexbox, and JavaScript Widgets, broken down into various items – basic typography, sizing, navbar, alerts & progress, cards, etc. When I’m done I’ll have great reference code of all the classes etc. I’m about halfway through the CSS Components category.

The course has felt a little tedious with all the drilling, but I know it will be very helpful to me to learn and to get it into my brain. I can see how this course might not work for someone who doesn’t already have an html/css background and doesn’t really understand where all the classes etc. are leading to. But I’m really glad to have found it, and on sale, too!

We’re using Visual Studio Code for the text editor, which is great as I haven’t used it before. In working with the re-do of the “Coding Responsive Websites” course over on Skillcrush, I’ve been working with Brackets, just to try and test all the text editors out. More on the Responsive class in a future post …

I’m also psyched that there are 5 projects of different kinds and complexity. I may start the first one just to give myself a break from all the drilling ….

Another piece that will be in one of the projects in working a bit with SASS, which I want to know/learn more about it. Apparently one of the things we will do with SASS is to change the default color scheme of primary, danger, warning, info, etc. This is great in that I am getting SO sick of looking these colors:

Kudos to the folks in the general channel of Skillcrush’s Slack channel for having a thread about working with two monitors. At my day job I have two monitors, everyone does, and we’re mostly just doing boring Word/Excel/internet stuff. Switching between Chrome, photoshop, Atom and iTunes and others was really annoying and slowing me down on my (pretty small) MacBook Pro. Found an Acer monitor for less than $100 online, conferred with a friend on getting the right adapter, got them both, and it’s MUCH much better. Yay!

Note as well sweet neon cactus sale purchase from Target.

Things are going more slowly than I would like, classwork-wise, although I also feel like I keep saying that. I was super excited for this Responsive class – still am – but am just slogging. I partly blame weather (winter, grey skies, less sun) and the holiday crazies. This time of year is really hard for me to stay motivated with so little sun (hence, neon cactuses and other light sources that I try to keep blaring into my face practically at all times.)

But I am 63% done – lesson 9 of 15 – of the Responsive class, and I have got to get back into the groove. Really hoping the dual monitor situation will help out a bit.

Have been thinking as well about what comes after this class. For the next project we are supposed to find a simple project that we get paid for, somewhere around $50 – $75. Not sure at all how I will approach that just yet. I think when this class is done I want to revisit my own website, start from scratch, and make it responsive.

Bummed that I have not yet made it to a meet-up. The next one I was planning to go to early next month was on the changes in ES6 for Javascript. Have realized that I have a conflict with an event with my kiddo, which comes first. Hoping that they offer it again!

And I’ve been lots of tired lately. Kind of bummed about my not-so-speedy progress, but progress is at least being made.

Finally wrapped up JavaScript class and all projects in it. Without a doubt I need to do more practice/study in it to feel like I have a handle on it. Heading to two JavaScript related meet-ups next month – I hope – the one I’d hoped to do this month got cancelled – to get more comfortable in it.

Went ahead started the responsive class while still wrapping up JavaScript as just super interested to jump in. First big project is to take a site we all coded in the HTML intro course and make it mobile-first and then also responsive. I think I’ve accomplished the mobile part, but first attempts at media queries for tablet and desktop were no so successful. Need to get back in to give it another whack, but, see above title.

I’ve also signed up for a course through Udemy on using Chrome Dev Tools. We for sure have talked about it in the Skillcrush classes, but I’m not sure I’m using it to it’s full potential (while googling for some info on the topic, I did watch a brief video about using Dev Tools to debug JavaScript which, hey, is good to know if I ever feel like I’ve gotten the hang of coding in that. )

Another reason I wanted to take a Dev Tools course is that it seems like the most often given piece of advice from the teachers of this class when folks ask a question is: Test it out in Dev Tools! Which I can appreciate, sure, but it also seems like just answering a question or two in a straightforward manner would be occasionally really helpful.

It’s like: I can’t turn on my computer, what do I do? Test it out in Dev Tools! …… no.